Good morning from Iowa Capital Dispatch.
“As a Paralympian, I also know it’s important to have rules. It’s why I oppose males competing in female sports, something that is already illegal in Iowa. I’m against taxpayers paying for sex changes, too. Anyone tells you any different is lying.” — Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Josh Turek in a campaign ad about transgender issues that has drawn bipartisan criticism.
In September 2026, Waterloo’s Friendship Village Retirement Community was awarded “gold trophy” status by CMS and deemed eligible for abbreviated, risk-based inspections. That same month, state inspectors fined the home $5,000 for violations that resulted in a resident’s hospitalization for a broken hip. Friendship Village was also cited for failing to make a good-faith effort at identifying and correcting regulatory violations. As of Monday, the home still displayed “gold trophy” status on the CMS website. (Photo via Google Earth)
Seventy-five of Iowa’s 393 nursing facilities are now subject to a reduced form of government inspection, a new analysis of federal data shows.
The National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, a nonprofit advocacy group, has analyzed, on a state-by-state basis, the federal government’s new, shorter inspection process for nursing homes that’s based on the facilities’ perceived risk to residents.
Democrat Josh Turek, running for U.S. Senate in 2026, spoke to Democrats gathered for state Rep. Sean Bagniewski’s annual Fish Fry dinner in Des Moines Oct. 11, 2026. (Photo by Robin Opsahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Josh Turek, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, is facing criticism from both LGBTQ+ advocates and Republicans for a recent ad in which he said he opposed allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports, and supported blocking Medicaid funding going to gender-affirming care for transgender Iowans.
Turek, a state representative from Council Bluffs who faces Republican U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson in the general election, released an ad Sunday titled “Stop the Nonsense,” about issues related to transgender Iowans.
The Iowa Food System Coalition is embarking on a 12-month project studying pasture-based livestock systems in Iowa to examine the community and economic benefits of the practices.
Iowa regulators have reinstated the license of a nurse previously sanctioned for alleged drug thefts in four different states.
Soybean harvest across Iowa has picked up after a slow start to harvest season and is now 6 percentage points behind the five-year average harvest, according to the latest crop progress and condition report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
A record number of women are running for state legislative seats this November, more than two-thirds of whom are Democrats, Stateline reports.
President Donald Trump’s 11th-hour campaign to intervene in California’s vote counting encountered its first resistance from federal courts on Monday, with appellate judges ruling against the effort.
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